


if you don't believe, it can't hurt you

by WaterSeraphim



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Gen, Kid Fic, Major Original Character(s), Psychological Trauma, implied Jace/Vraska, mentioned Ral/Tomik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-23 10:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaterSeraphim/pseuds/WaterSeraphim
Summary: Jalus can't sleep because of his overactive mind. He goes to his teacher for a distraction, and to get away from his father. Things don't go as planned.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	if you don't believe, it can't hurt you

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of hurt with not a lot of comfort. 
> 
> Jalus is a character for a DnD campaign, he's the son of Ral and Tomik. He's a very intelligent and talented mage for someone his age. He has a natural inclination for telepathy and electromancy.

_It was raining the day my dad died._

_It didn’t start that way._

_It was sunny, comfortably mild and completely unremarkable. I went to my morning lessons, and my fathers went to their respective jobs. Everything was fine, until it wasn’t._

_My parents were Guildmasters of the Izzet League and the Orzhov Syndicate, though that last one was supposed to be a secret. They were heroes, apparently they defended Ravnica from being destroyed by an evil planeswalking dragon. The Guildpact always joked about how my father finally got something right for once. I thought the Guildpact was a big jerk._

_I love them, well, I_ loved _them. Ral, my father, was one of the smartest mages on Ravnica, and Tomik, my dad, was even smarter than him, or so Ral said. Ral was a planeswalker and a scientist, and he was terrible at cooking but daddy pretended he wasn’t to make him feel better. They had a lot of weird friends like Hekara and Master Kaya. When I was little Hekara tried to teach me how to juggle knives. My father didn’t like that too much._

_I liked my dad more than my father, but I never told them that. They were smart enough to figure it out, though. Sometimes when I was sneaking out of my room late at night I could hear my father complaining about it._

_Well then maybe he shouldn’t be so mean!_

_I can’t remember what that day’s lesson was, but a squad of scorchburners came to get me. Told me my father wanted me home right away. Something bad happened and he needed to make sure I was safe. When I got home he was pacing back and forth like he always did when he had something on his mind. His hair was sticking up all over the place and he looked like he was one volt short of blowing up._

_When I asked where my dad was he never answered me, instead he took in a deep breath and tried to fake a smile. I looked down at my hands so I didn’t have to watch him lie to me._

_I knew then that something had happened to him. Master Beleren helped train my telepathy so I could read the pain coming from my father without even peeking inside. It was a creeping, stomach turning feeling of anxiety. Uncertainty. Grief._

_After a while he left. His viashino guards remained with me in the house. Their tails flicked nervously, their slit eyes watched me when they thought I wasn’t looking. I didn’t want to stay there while my dad was in danger. I couldn’t wait for someone else to come save me._

_My daddy always told me that the strongest people were the ones who refused to do what they’re told. My father would always joke with him that that didn’t pertain to bedtimes or little boys disobeying their daddies._

_So I left. It wasn’t hard to follow the wake of my father’s mind. It was a raging tempest restrained by a birdcage. The skies were turning black. The streets always full of life were hauntingly vacant. Wrong, wrong, it was all so_ wrong. 

_After some time the neighborhoods became more opulent, the streets paved with greater care. The few passerbys I saw were dressed similar to the way my dad used to look. All poofy sleeves and big gold collars._

_The trail of my father’s mind came to a stop. Suddenly there were people, thousands of them crowded together in a dense knot. This was Orzhova, I could recognize it from visiting my daddy when he was working. Sometimes it was hard to differentiate the parts of the city when it all blended together._

_The crowd was loud, so loud it made my head hurt. I tried to use my father’s mind as an anchor to focus myself in the chaos. Master Beleren always stressed about_ anchors _. My father had a pretty busy head, but it was better than nothing._

_Thunder rumbled above, a heavy drop of rain landed on my cheek and splattered all over my glasses. I kept moving._

_I pushed and shoved and ducked my way through the crowd. I had to see what was happening, why everyone was so panicked. Why my father came all this way in such a hurry. Where my dad was._

_I saw red._

_Gold, shining metal._

_I wish I never came._

_There was so much blood. The reaches of crimson formed a sunburst around him. It flowed into the cracks and crevices in the pavement, drained into the gutters, and found its way across all of Orzhova._

_They had to clean my dad off of the entire district._

_Dad…_

_He looked so pale, white as his favorite robes, now painted red. His eyes were thankfully shut, face almost peaceful. If it weren’t for the blood I could almost pretended he simply collapsed on the street._

_Orzhov knights made a protective matrix around their fallen master. I heard a voice giving orders. She sounded familiar._

_My father was shaking. His hands brushing against my dad’s pale cheek. His blood was getting all over him_ **_,_ ** _his fingers were completely soaked in red. Everything he touched was tainted by it._

_I couldn’t stop myself from crying, nor could I silence my screams._

_“Daddy!”_

_It was raining, then._

_“Daddy, please don’t die!”_

_Somewhere beyond the haze of shock and grief my father heard me. He turned to me, his eyes were rimmed with tears that he never let fall. I could barely recognize him as the person who tucked me into bed every night. He looked less than human in that moment. My father stood from where he was kneeling and rushed over to me. His pants were soaked with blood._

_I tried to stop crying. I didn’t want to make him worry about me. My dad wouldn’t want me to cry. No…_

_“Don’t look, please. Krokt. Look at me, Jalus. Don’t look anywhere else but me.”_

_But daddy… He was covered in my dad’s blood. I couldn’t stop staring. How could I look away?_

_He wiped away at my tears, grabbed my cheeks forcing me to focus on him, and tried to smile. He tried. He kept trying the whole night, and the rest of the week, year, forever. My father never smiled quite the same after my dad died._

_I could feel the blood he left on my face, his eyes followed it before focusing back on me._

_“It’s going to be okay, Jalus. Hey, are you listening to me?”_

_I nodded my head and sniffled._

_“Good. Keep looking at me, okay. I’m here. I’m… not okay. But I will be.”_

_I tried to hold back a sob. The woman called out, giving more orders. The golden knights arranged their protective bubble and then I couldn’t see daddy anymore. Only the blood._

_“Ok. Fuck. He was always better at this. Jalus? Tomik, he’s… gone. Daddy’s gone. But you already know that don’t you? You’re such a smart kid…”_

_“But he’ll come back, right? His ghost…”_

_“No. No. He can’t. They took it. They fucking ripped it from him. Krokt. Tomik!” My father’s voice cracked with immense emotional pain. His face was drawn tight, the thunder boomed overhead. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t even know how to help myself._

_Ever the inquisitive child, I asked “How?”_

_“I don’t know yet. Teysa is looking, she’s trying… Tomik is gone, baby. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”_

_I only then noticed the blood on my father’s lips._

_“Daddy? No… He can’t be. He said he was immortal… he can’t die. It’s not possible.”_

_My father’s crumbling composure shattered to pieces. He leaned down, wrapping his arms around me and resting his head atop mine. The latent energy buildup in his body was making me numb._

_“Daddy loves you, Jalus. He loves you so much. He’s so proud of you and-“ he choked. “He didn’t want to leave you. He would never want to leave you. You're our little rainbow.”_

_“I want to go home,” I whimpered into my father’s chest._

_“Let’s go home, c’mon.“_

_I didn’t want to leave my dad behind._

_“But daddy-“_

_“Jalus,” my father pleaded. “I want him back more than anything in the world. But we have to go. We have to keep moving. For him..”_

We could bring him with _, I wanted to say. I didn’t want all of these strangers here, staring at him, shouting at the lady and her knights._

_“Ral.”_

_The hands soothing my shoulders stilled._

_My father sounded surprised. “Jace? What are you… what are you doing here?”_

_It would have been more practical for Master Beleren to project himself rather than fight through the bloody district to find them. But he came. He was really here._

_“I figured you would need someone… somewhere else that wasn’t his to return to.”_

_My father was speaking to Master Beleren without moving his mouth. I could hear the echoes of conversation coming from their minds._

_“-o… my son-“_

_“He needs somewhere-“_

_“-too soon-”_

_“-you sure?”_

_“No.”_

_Master Beleren’s face softened beneath his hood. “We’re friends, Ral, of course I want to help you. Both_ _of you.”_

_I was twelve. Old enough to understand what death meant for us, for my father. I wasn’t old enough to know the world was a cruel and terrible place. Where everything you loved was torn from you, or beaten down until it shattered._

_Now I know._

  
  


* * *

  
  


It was raining, again.

Ravnica had a habit of doing that. Ral used to say it was one of the reasons he stayed. The weather agreed with his magic, it was nice, comfortable. Now Jalus knew the only reason he stayed was out of obligation. He felt like he owed someone his presence, most of the time it was Jalus. Sometimes his guild, the Living Guildpact, the years dead image of his late husband. 

He was living through the motions. Playing a losing game because he just couldn’t bear to quit. Jalus could hear the questions dancing through Ral’s head. If he was a failure of a father, too. What dad would do if he was still around. That Jalus deserved someone better raising him, someone who could give him the attention he needed. 

Jalus felt like _he_ was the parent sometimes. He always had to remind Ral to shave and shower, to eat more than coffee and sleep in his bed instead of his office in Nivix. Dad used to be the one to keep up with him, and now that he was gone Jalus was left to deal with it. 

It was hard seeing Ral fall apart. Master Beleren and Hekara had hundreds of stories of how he _used_ to be. How he was some upstart guildmage from nowhere who solved the Implicit Maze, rose through the ranks of the League, and eventually united the guilds to defend Ravnica. Now he faked all of his smiles and spent long nights _Krokt_ knows where until he came home smelling of alcohol and ozone. 

Jalus knew what he was doing at the bar, pretended he didn’t notice the sound of two pairs of footsteps rather than one. Ignored the nights Ral never came back at all. Jalus never asked, he knew what he was doing and trying to imagine it was something else only made him feel worse. 

_“Because he’s coping,”_ Master Beleren had told him one day. “ _Your father has a difficult time handling his problems. He needs… distractions.”_

Ral’s little distractions had him taking off his wedding ring each time he left at night. Jalus hated it, hated how weak _grief_ made Ral. He threw away all of his dignity and respect for his dead lover for the sake of _forgetting._ But he refused to actually forget! 

Once when Jalus was supposed to be sleeping he overheard Ral talking to Master Beleren. “ _I can’t stop thinking about him. I wish he would stop. Stop haunting me! Krokt. I miss him so much. Every time I look at Jalus all I can see is him. How can you take it?”_

_“Kallist…” Jace began quietly. “It took me years to forgive myself. And I never really forgave_ her _. There’s no right way to deal with what you’re feeling, and I’m not the person to ask for advice on mourning, anyway. Running away from it won’t make it stop. I tried. Just know that you have friends here for you, me, Emmara, Kaya, Hekara. Angels above, even Niv-Mizzet. You have an amazingly talented son who loves you. I know he does, I can see his mind. Don’t go on about how much he hates you, he’s just dealing with this a different way than you are.”_

_Ral sighed, “That’s the problem. He needs me, and I can’t be what he needs. I can’t be him.”_

_Jace was silent for a long time before answering_ , _“I can take him away, Ral. If it hurts that bad, I can help.”_

_Jalus’ breath caught in his throat._

_“Fuck. I can’t do it. I can’t let him go. It’s pathetic, but I don’t want to forget that someone like him could love someone like me.”_

_“Hey, Ral. It’s okay. It’s fine. That’s a big decision and I shouldn’t have suggested it in the first place-“_

_I snuck back to my bedroom. I knew I could never forget dad. In that moment, I didn't know what Ral would have chosen. That not knowing, it terrified me._

Ral was right about one thing, he couldn’t be the same kind of parent dad had been. He wasn’t forgiving and gentle. He didn’t have the patience for mistakes or any skill for conversation. Speaking to him felt like turning up skeletons, it was dangerous and bound to reopen old wounds. Ral meant well, he really did. He asked Jalus about his studies and helped him with his homework and showed him how to survive the best way he knew how. Ral just didn’t _get it._ Dad never _pushed_ for success, never _pushed_ for anything. He let Jalus take his time and grow at his own pace without worrying how long it took to get there. He didn’t scream or lose his temper. He didn’t cause a damn electrical surge when Jalus failed to meet his impossible expectations.

_I wish Ral would be proud of me for once._

The rain was getting heavier, it beat against the roof in unrelenting sheets. Jalus was lying in his comfy bed studying. Well, more like reading, really. A stack of thick leather bound tomes from Master Beleren’s personal library were on a precarious pile at the corner of his mattress. Another book was draped across his lap, flipped open to some meaningless paragraph on mana convergence. The words weren’t sticking to his head and instead all he could think about were things he shouldn’t.

Rain was supposed to be good. Rain was supposed to be safe. It connected to his magic and empowered his mind. Now it made him restless. He couldn’t focus on his work with it pounding the roof and drowning out his thoughts. 

Jalus set his book aside and slid off his bed. He put on his boots, wrapped a dark cowl around his shoulders, and crept over to his door. It was late, much later than his established curfew. He should have been asleep, but his mind was never very good at resting. Dad used to thank Ral’s genes for that.

With a simple projection of his magic he could hear Ral’s dreams filtering through his head. Thankfully just the usual fantastical nonsense and stray math calculations. So he was home after all. Jalus wasn’t sure if that comforted him or made him pity the man even more.

If Ral woke up from his sneaking, then he would ask where he was going, and Jalus would either have to go back to his stifling bedroom or lie. Lying to Ral was almost as awful as watching his shaking hands and glazed green eyes.

Jalus tiptoed down the hall, wary of all the creaky floorboards. The house was old. Dad wanted to get something close to Orzhova and Nivix. And he wanted a _nice neighborhood_ to raise a baby, Ravnica didn’t have many of those. Dad knew what he was doing though, Jalus heard from his friends about Gruul raids and Boros street fighting. The most that happened around here were cats getting stuck on windowsills and delinquent boys sneaking out under their sad father’s noses.

As he made his way into the living room he stopped. Taking in a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Ral kept a framed portrait of dad on the dining table. There were fresh flowers in a vase beside it, probably from Emmara Tandris. She was visiting so often these days. She had lost her husband as well, her influence was good for Ral. Or at least Master Beleren said so. 

Jalus remembered sitting in Master Beleren’s wash room and scrubbing dad’s blood from his face. The cloth was rubbing his skin raw, but he had to get it all. _Had to get him off of me._

_Enough._

He shook himself from his memories and left out the front door—careful to not let the old hinges squeak—and locked it behind him. Safer didn’t mean _safe._ The neighbors knew who they were, knew Ral was important and rich and vulnerable. An easy target for a lofty sum. Guildmasters made a fortune, and when Dad died all of his family’s wealth went to Ral. 

The streets were quiet this time of night besides the rain and the distant hum of electricity. Jalus took off his glasses before tilting his head towards the sky and letting the water pour over him. He didn’t need the glasses anyway, they were cosmetic, solely for the purpose of imitating his Dad. Now it was a force of habit, and a bittersweet memorial. 

To be truthful, he didn’t have a destination in mind. He just needed to get out of his own head for once. In a few months he was supposed to be applying to the Izzet League. Master Beleren and Ral had been training him since forever for that very purpose. His parents read him textbooks on duplication theory before he knew how to walk. He had his own lab at age five, fully equipped with enough assistants to fulfill every wild idea he could think of. It wasn’t fair the lead in life he’d been given, and he knew it. Ral knew it too. He pressured him to achieve more faster, to greater success, than he could have dreamed of doing at the same age. The pressure was enough to make him buckle beneath its weight.

Jalus wasn’t even sure if he wanted to join the Izzet, honestly. It was apparently already decided without him having any say in the matter.

The project he’d been working on in order to impress the Izzet recruiters was vaguely completed. More tests needed to be run to help ascertain its structural integrity and whatnot. It was important that test subjects didn’t dissolve into scattered atoms when entering the chrono-field. 

His project was an offering for the Laboratory of Continuism. The guildmages there were skilled at time magic. They could slow objects down until they were completely frozen. They could increase speeds of production and improve output by multiples of unbelievable proportions. What Jalus wanted most, was to alter the flow of time completely. To travel forwards and backwards within the continuum. The possible applications were endless. It could be used to acquire forgotten knowledge, collect resources that have long been extinct. To interview ancient mages and learn their magic and use it to train others in the present. 

In the future, you could bring future inventions back and invent them sooner! Uncover new advancements and implement them in modern technology to further increase the speed of progress! Not to mention become the most accurate weather forecaster on the plane! 

Or at least, that was the boar-shit he wrote down for his speech.

The Laboratory of Continuism had tried to create something like it, of course they did. Every aspiring member had their story of how they wanted to make a time machine. It was everyone’s science fiction inspired dream. As far as he was aware, the current chrono-transfer technology was capable of about twenty-one hours of displacement. Not even a single _day!_

Preliminary testing of his own project showed results far beyond that. The best feedback reaching to the shattering of the Guildpact. He had to stop some of his assistants from hopping right in and getting lost in Ravnica from almost one hundred years ago. The chances of accidentally altering time and forever dooming the future was a looming concern.

When Jalus was weak, tired, and ready to fold, he remembered why he was doing all of it in the first place: _Tomik Vrona._

Seeing him again made every all-nighter, every splitting migraine, and injury worth it. Being able to speak to him, to hear his voice again… his laugh… his smile… 

Jalus would do anything. 

If it worked, he could bring Ral with him. It was a fantastical dream, but maybe it would help him heal, at least for the moment.

_I wish dad was here,_ was a thought he’d been replaying over the last four years. He needed someone to smile, to pat his shoulder and say, “ _You did great! I’m so proud of you!”_ and actually mean it.

In his idle wanderings his body had led him somewhere he knew well. The quiet streets gave way to bustling roads full of carriages for hire. Jalus had to be careful where he walked, or be trampled by a horde of over-energetic goblins just getting off of their ghost hour shifts. 

Master Beleren’s mansion was a sight to see, and that was coming from the son of an Orzhov Guildmaster. It didn’t have the tacky overembelishments that the Syndicate loved to stick to any and everything. Instead it was cozy, like an old library or museum. Everything that an inquisitive mind could desire, all contained under one roof.

After knocking on the front door, Jalus mused that it was probably a bad idea, but then it was opening and a tired looking Jace Beleren was eyeing him incredulously. He was in his usual blue attire, but his hair was a mess and his face drooped with a lack of sleep. He’d probably been up working in his library without noticing the late hour, again. That would also explain the relative speed in which he reached the door.

Jace raised an eyebrow, blowing a thick lock of brown hair away from his face. “Little late for a visit, Rainbow.“

“Couldn’t sleep,” was all Jalus could offer in response. 

Jace gave a small smile, knowing Jalus’ insomnia related peculiarities from firsthand experience. “Well, come in. Unless you want to stay out here in the pouring rain.” 

Jalus didn’t wait for him to move out of the doorway before squeezing past him. He happily made his way into his teacher’s spacious kitchen and adjoining dining area. Jalus was as comfortable in Jace’s home as he was in his own, perhaps even more than his own, actually. Jace followed close behind, his trademark cloak swooshing all over the place.

“How’s your father doing?” Jace asked as he stopped before the sink. He quickly turned the faucet on and filled a kettle with tap water. 

Jalus settled into a chair at the counter, watching his teacher work. He barely remembered to place his rain splattered glasses back onto his nose after giving them a thorough wiping.

Seeing Jace flitting about faintly reminded him of their tutoring sessions. Those had a lot more mind games though. “Fine.”

It was a generous statement. Ral was anything _but_ fine.

Jace turned to him, now with an empty ceramic mug in one hand. “Does he know that you’re here?”

Jalus didn’t respond. He didn’t have to, he already felt his teacher’s inquiring magic probing at the reaches of his own mind. 

“Jalus…” 

Jalus shrugged uncomfortably. Unlike with Ral, it was hard to shake Jace’s disappointment. “He needs as much sleep as he can get, okay? If I woke him up he’d go back to working until he passed out again. I count the nights he sleeps in his own bed as a victory.”

“I know that’s not the real reason why,” Jace frowned, settling his mug next to the stove, and instead resting his hands in front of Jalus. “Hey, Rainbow. You can talk to me. I won’t tell.” He mimed the motion of locking his lips and throwing away the key. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he groaned. “He’s just. Too much. Being around him makes me remember when he wasn’t like… this.” Jalus threw up his hands in exasperation. “Look, I couldn’t sleep and I needed to get out of his disaster radius.”

“ _Hmm_ , so you don’t want to talk about your father.” Jace leaned closer, and made a show of tapping his index finger to his forehead as if to say _mindmage_! “Instead of doing that, how about this? It’s late, and it’s raining outside. Do you want to sleep here? I could get one of the spare bedrooms ready for you?”

“Vraska isn’t here?”

“No,” Jace smiled warmly, his happiness clear even in the dim light. “She’s with her people tonight.”

“I’m lucky I caught you here, then.” Wherever his Queen went, he tended to follow. “If I can stay, I would love that, thank you.”

“Then I suppose that making us tea isn’t a good idea?” 

Jalus sheepishly adjusted the glasses on his face, a bad habit used to hide his embarrassment. It wasn’t often that he got the chance to act like the kid he was. Doing so was a bit exhilarating, really. “I could use some sleepy tea, please?”

Jace gave a weak chuckle, “sleepy tea for my sleepy little student, sure.”

“Hey, I am _not_ little. I’m _taller_ than you!”

“You can thank your freakishly tall fathers for that,” Jace snorted as he returned to the stove. Setting the water filled kettle onto the burner before asking, “mind helping me with this?”

Jalus slid off his stool with some generous grumbles of protest and touched his hand to the cool surface of the kettle. With a small burst of mana he heated the water to boiling instantly. Thanks to his own nature, touching the scorching metal barely even registered as warm.

“Thank you.”

Jace lifted the kettle by the handle, pouring water into two matching mugs before setting it back down on the stove. He reached overhead and opened one of the wooden cabinet doors above him. It was stock full of every kind of tea Jalus could dream of. If it was possible to bring tea from other planes, he was sure Jace would have even more varieties. 

“Chamomile, for my sleepy student… and me. I need to work tomorrow,” Jace sighed. He plucked the small wooden container filled with tea packets and removed two for their drinks. He dropped them both in, before picking the mugs up and placing them on the dining counter. He pulled out a chair and took a seat, gesturing for Jalus to copy him and do the same.

Jalus studied his mug, it bore the image of a comically cute Jace Beleren with the symbol of the Guildpact behind him. He offered his teacher a confused quirk of his brow, amused at the idea of Jace owning merchandise of himself. “Collector’s edition?”

“I was gifted these,” Jace explained. “By an old... friend.”

He didn’t need to push for any further details. Jace offered the memory freely.

_It began with the image of a woman with long black hair, and a fancy purple dress. Jalus could feel his teacher’s conflicted emotions for her, the hurt tangling between an almost guilty fondness. Jalus could recognize her from other memories Jace shared in the past. All of them held that same uncertainty, there was history between them._

_Jace preferred not to speak of her._

_The woman shoved a large cardboard box into his arms, a barely-there smile on her painted lips. “They made me think of you,” she said in a low, smokey tone. “I imagined you would hate them, so I needed to get them. Here. Don’t thank me”_

“So, do you hate them?” Jalus asked as he played with his bag of tea.

Jace ripped several small packets of sugar and dumped them into his mug. “Not enough, really.”

Seeing the memory gave him another idea. Jalus took a sip of his steeped tea, bemusing over the thoughts in his head. “I have a… question.” Despite the trust he had in his mentor, he was still too shy to ask something that was as dear to him as this was.

Jace gestured with his hand to continue, and then lifted his own tea for a sip. 

“If you can get rid of unwanted memories like Ral’s, then is it possible to collect old ones that are almost forgotten?”

Jace choked on his tea in surprise. “You heard that?” he winced.

Jalus nodded, not quite in the mood for smiling, “I’m good at sneaking.”

“I suppose you are,” Jace rubbed at his eyes tiredly. “It might take some digging, and recollecting runs parallel with _recreating._ Forcing yourself to remember things you forgot can result in producing fake memories instead,” Jace looked over his steaming mug curiously. “What do you want to remember?”

“It’s stupid,” Jalus frowned, averting his attention to his tea. 

“Nothing you could come up with is _‘stupid’_ , kid,” Jace smiled.

“It’s my dad.” Jalus began quietly, eyes flicking to his teacher and searching for any sign of disapproval. ”I’m having a hard time… remembering how he was. Instead I’m remembering what _other_ people said he was like. The little things, like his hobbies and the way his voice sounded, they’re getting blurry. I don’t want to forget him,” Jalus ended his explanation with his voice caught in his throat. He wasn’t about to get worked up in front of his teacher. It was just… a difficult subject. 

“Alright, Jalus, I’ll help,” Jace reassured, setting his mug on the counter and coming around to sit beside him rather than across. 

“Thanks…” 

Jace reached out his hand, palm open and awaiting for his permission. Jalus assented, resting his own hand atop his teacher’s and looked to him for further instruction.

“Relax yourself, get comfortable enough to fall asleep. You’re going to want to put the tea down for this… Maybe move it away from you.”

“Is this going to hurt?”

Jace frowned, “it shouldn’t. But it could if you fight me. Try to stay calm and let me in like we practiced.”

Jalus could admit that he was nervous, but for Dad? It was worth it. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing, in—pause—then out. A farce of meditation to bring his anxiety in check. He trusted Jace, of course he did, but it was hard to calm yourself when someone was rummaging inside your brain. 

He could feel the familiar touch of his teacher, breaching his mental wall with ease. Jace gave him a moment to adjust to the feeling of not being alone in his own head before moving further. 

_“Hard part is over already,”_ Jace whispered into his head. But it wasn’t really whispering because it was impossible to change the volume in your mind. It was gentler, Jalus settled upon, like a warm chamomile. 

Jace pressed deeper, reaching for the traces of memories in the shadows of his mind. It could take minutes, hours, maybe a day to sort through all of it. Soon images began filtering through his vision, more recent ones of dad and Ral side by side hunched over and examining important documents. One of Dad sitting across from Jalus at a cafe, sharing a drink not unlike what Jace was doing now. 

Of course the blurrier memories were the older ones, ones where Jalus was only a couple feet high and Ral’s hair had fewer greys. Dad was carrying him high on his shoulders and leaning in for a kiss with Ral. Then dad ducked down to let Ral give Jalus a tingly kiss on his forehead. Dad coming home early with a stuffed felidar which quickly became Jalus’ favorite toy for the next three years. Dad with his eyes squeezed tight laughing joyfully at a joke Ral told him. Dad carrying Jalus to bed because he fell asleep waiting for Ral to come home. Dad helping him get dressed in the morning for an Orzhov holiday church service. Dad when he broke his glasses and Ral ‘fixed’ them for him by making them capable of shooting laser beams. 

Dad kissing him goodbye the day he never came home.

_“Wait. This isn’t right,” Jalus could hear Jace’s confusion in his mind. “These shouldn’t be here. They’re from before you should be capable of remembering. Human children don’t begin storing long term memories until around age four…”_

_“What are they?”_

_Jace went silent for a moment. “Strange, they’re almost…encrypted?”_

If the memories Jace showed him before were crisp and lifelike, these were distorted and cut into pieces. There were fragments of a voice, someone screaming in a language that didn’t exist. A kaleidoscope of shattered mirrors that converged into a shape that wasn’t physically possible. 

“ _I’m trying to sort them, but they’re fighting me. Do you have any idea what these are from?”_

Jalus felt strangely breathless, like he just ran the entirety of Tin Street in one go. “ _No.”_

Like a key, the distorted images unlocked and slowly drifted into place.

“ _I got it, it was a relatively simple sequence… but why were they encrypted in the first place?”_ Jace sounded nervous. “ _Do you want to look at them, Jalus?”_

He hesitated, perhaps the memories were hidden for a good reason. There was always something strange floating around his past. Jalus was a smart kid, he knew that Ral and Dad couldn’t have made him on their own. Someone else had to help or… he had to be adopted. Whenever he asked they dodged the question like it was poisonous. 

Maybe the strange memories held the truth to where he came from?

“ _Okay… but if it’s anything weird I want to stop.”_

_“I will, if you need me to. Don’t worry about me, keep your own comfort a priority, okay?”_

_“Okay.”_

_The impossible kaleidoscope sorted itself out into a scene. Tomik was sitting at a table with Ral and several other high ranking Izzet officers. If Jalus tried hard enough he could recall some of their names from seeing them with Ral over the years._

_“The faction is being dealt with,” came the voice of a woman just out of his field of vision. “Decades of research logs to sort through. They took a terrifying interest in writing all of their experiments down.”_

_Ral’s face looked pale, his hands were shaking. “Every good scientist learns to record their… mistakes.”_

_“How many pods were recovered?” asked one of the goblin officers._

_The woman finally stepped into view, she was tall with a head of feather-like scales. Her tail twitched back and forth as she continued. “Thirty-nine in total. Eleven were damaged during the raid and subsequent skirmish with the rogue scientists. Almost all of the test subjects perished upon retrieval.”_

_“_ Almost _all?” asked a human officer._

_“Three more subjects survived, the estimates are grim for their expected lifespans. One is already showing signs of rapid deterioration, its body is failing faster than our equipment is able to stabilize it.”_

_Tomik spoke up, “these subjects… are they…?”_

_“Children.”_

_Jalus expected his dad to look unsettled, instead he was as calm as he was prior to the revelation. “Loss of life is unavoidable? Oligarchs live hundreds of years despite our failing bodies. Let Orzhov healers look them over. It couldn’t hurt.”_

_“No,” Ral frowned. “This stays between the people in this room.”_

_Tomik looked surprised, but did not make any attempt to argue._

_“What about my squad, Master Zarek? They’ve seen the labs themselves. It’s not something one can just forget,” the viashino woman tapped her claw on a file placed between them on the table._

_“Your men don’t know all of it, they think they stopped a group experimenting on embryos. They don’t know where the DNA came from,” Ral’s face looked beyond upset._

_“This can’t get out,” another goblin officer agreed. “Our reputation would be ruined. That we ‘allowed’ this faction to do such a thing…”_

_“Stealing genetic material from powerful adversaries…”_

_“In order to create child weapons…”_

_“The subjects that survived… are you aware of what genetic material they possess?” asked a vedalken officer._

_“Yes, of course,” the viashino said with some thinly veiled annoyance. “Our three remaining subjects are as follows, an elven female with the DNA belonging to a Gruul war-chief and a Selesnyan diplomat. A human male with the DNA of a Boros lieutenant and what was described in their notes as_ “blood of the old ones.” _This boy is the one experiencing rapid deterioration. His internal organs are being rejected by his immune system.”_

_Tomik spoke quietly, “he won’t survive long.”_

_“And the last one?” the vedalken asked._

_The viashino looked to Ral with concern. “Human male, “_ possesses the DNA of Guildmage Zarek and the Living Guildpact _.”_

_Ral cursed, “Beleren.”_

_“The notes on this subject are alarming, Guildmaster. Have you looked over them?”_

_Ral nodded, his face twisted with disgust._

_“Subject J41-U5 has been doing well under our care, if you would like to visit him…”_

  
  


The memories were fading into the real world. He could see the kitchen, the viashino with her impatient tail. Ral and Tomik reading through reports in the corner of Jace’s dining room.

Jalus felt like throwing up, something inside his stomach was crawling to be released. His head was throbbing in pain. Opening his eyes, he saw Jace cast in blue light. It burned his vision until he could adjust. More throbbing pain… 

He needed something…

He needed…

Needed…

Jalus stood, it was almost like he was asleep. Nothing felt real. Any moment the floor could disappear from under him. If he reached out to grab the kitchen knife would his hand phase through it like an illusion?

No.

The knife was in his hand.

Jace was in his head.

He was vulnerable.

Now was the time.

Now.

Jalus stepped forward quietly. He was always so good at sneaking around. Always so good at stepping outside of his mind and letting something else take control.

The knife sunk into Jace. The blue light faded away into darkness. Jace looked at him with an expression _beyond_ fear, _beyond_ confusion.

“ _Rainbow?”_

Jalus smiled.

“Your… m-memories.” Jace choked, spitting up blood. “J-Jalus, you’re my-”

“Shut up.”

Jace tried to grab hold of his wrist, to take the knife from his hand and save himself. That would ruin everything, Jalus couldn’t allow that.

“This isn’t y-you. _Jalus!_ ”

When Jace’s fingers met his skin, Jalus responded by flaring an electrical current through his body strong enough to paralyze him.

Jace spasmed, his arms falling to his sides, limp and useless. With a little push, he was falling over, off of the stool and onto the floor. The knife went with.

While his body was motionless, his mind was still dangerous. Jalus had to kill him before he recovered. He dropped to his knees, perching beside Jace and ripping the knife from his chest. The electricity had heated it up so much that the skin around it cauterized. That wasn’t good. He needed Jace to bleed.

Jace’s blue eyes were glazed, but still moving. Refocusing and darting around the room, as they settled on Jalus they widened in fear. 

Ral had taught him many things. Jalus knew just the right voltage to stop a man’s heart. Since stabbing wasn’t fast enough, this would do just fine.

With the storm outside, it wasn’t any real challenge to draw the energy needed for a lightning bolt. Nor was it hard to channel it into Jace with his hand resting atop his chest. 

And then Jace spasmed again.

  
  


And his heart stopped.

  
  


Jalus stood, knife still in hand, and studied the man resting on the floor. 

His eyes were empty, his mouth slack. 

It was almost anti-climatic. 

Jalus sat back on his stool and finished his tea.

It wasn’t until after that that the pain in his head began to fade. The nausea in his stomach stopped and his mind began to clear. 

He looked at the knife in his hands, and started to cry. Jalus dropped it like it burnt him.

The mug fell to the floor and shattered. It broke him out of his trance. Why? 

What the Krokt just happened to him? 

Why did he...

_kill Jace?_ No. Nonononono.

Jalus fell to his knees, the broken ceramic cutting into his skin. He ignored it and scrambled over to Jace. His heartbeat was gone. He reached out with his mind and heard nothing. It was all so _very_ wrong. 

He placed his hands over Jace’s heart and tried to beat it for him. Pumping the blood for him. He shocked his chest, it didn’t work. He did it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. 

“Jace _please don’t die I need you please I’m sorryI’msorryJaceplease.”_

He remained still. 

It was raining. Of course it was fucking raining. 

He needed to fix this, needed to fix everything. If he stayed here he was dead, Ral died long ago. There was no one left for him. He needed to go back. To get him back, to get Jace back. 

J41-U5. _Was that me? Did that mean…? Jace?_

He could remember back when he was little, how Ral tried so hard to warm him up to Jace. He’d told him that sending him to be tutored by Jace was because he wanted a mindmage to guide him. Was that really the reason why? There were plenty of telepaths among the Izzet, plenty of people that could have taken Jace’s place. Sometimes, when his parents were both busy, Ral would have Jace take care of him. He was there the night dad died…

_Was Tomik even my dad in the first place?_

Whatever secrets Jace unlocked in his head, they were too much to think about right now. He had to focus, to keep moving. 

Jalus used the counter to climb into a standing position. His legs were bleeding, but it didn’t matter. He looked down at Jace one last time, closed his eyes, burned the image into his mind. _I killed Jace Beleren._

He made to leave, but stopped.

He undid the clasp around Jace’s neck and took his cloak from his body. Jalus wrapped it around his shoulders and held himself tight. 

Jace used to hug him when he cried. It was almost like that.

He limped out of Jace’s house, out of his neighborhood. The rain soaked through his clothes and fogged his glasses until he couldn’t see. His legs hurt, he felt like vomiting. He couldn’t stop crying. He kept moving, moving until he was closing in on Nivix. He needed to get to his lab. He needed to fix this.

The door was locked. He didn’t have the key on him. He cried out in frustration, cursing every god he could think of, hurling obscenities into the sky. 

That gave him an idea. 

Reaching to the latent power in the air he summoned a lightning bolt strong enough to blast through the entrance and let him squeeze inside.

It was dark, he used a curl of electricity to power the lights. He kept moving, limping through the entryway and to the inner chamber. All of his equipment was where he left it. The chrono-transfer machine was powered on and ready for stress tests. A swirling vortex of blue energy and electricity gave way to the image of the tenth district over fifteen years ago as he worked the control panel. He calibrated the resistance, the margin of error.

Jalus didn’t have anything left to lose. If it didn’t work, he was dead. If it did… 

He closed his eyes, drawing up the memories of dad, of him smiling down at him proudly. The way Jace’s face had lit up when Jalus finally landed his first counterspell… 

He walked forward, the chrono-field came to meet him, curling around him like the arms of a long-forgotten memory. 

And he was gone.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> im sorry lmao


End file.
